Healthcare

The healthcare practice at NEXT LEVEL Partners®, LLC was originated in 2008. We have since partnered with > 100 different healthcare organizations to drive differentiated performance in every facet of the healthcare continuum including physician offices, acute care, sub-acute care, post-acute care, end of life care, out-patient centers, ancillary services, medical home models, ACOs and facility design & construction, among others.

We currently have > 50 standardized offerings in the form of event-based workshops; training sessions and non-event mentoring AT ALL LEVELS in the organization. This does not include our differentiated ability to provide customized offering where appropriate to best suite client needs. While our offering is broad and ranges in sophistication, we remain focused on being mindful with the client about what to offer and in what sequence to ensure we are best meeting the client organization where their existing capabilities may reside. By default, our broader and longer term perspective with any client partner throughout any activity will be more cultural; however, where all employees more deeply exemplify focused and disciplined critical thinking skills (a.k.a. A3 Thinking, continuous improvement mindset, etc) on a daily basis.

Our extensively experienced team of healthcare practitioners are THE differentiator that enables us to offer a unique value proposition that places the client at the center of our attention right from the start – as it should be. The team is led by Mike Holland, Vice President & Senior Mentor, who has been practicing Deming / TPS-based “lean” for > 25 years. Mike’s study and practice of the “lean philosophy” stems from a multi-year residency in Japan, “tier 1” supplier relationships with Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and Isuzu Motors of Japan, and operations leadership roles with Danaher Corporation before beginning his practice in healthcare > 10 years ago. Complete biographical information is readily available for any and all of our team members.

All of our teams, including healthcare, differentiate through the following unique client benefits.

There is no required minimum timeframe or contract for any engagement. We believe the right to return for partnering work within your organization is based on the value added each week – not through contractual obligation.

The partnership will involve a rigorous focus on competency development. Right from the beginning, we will leverage a structured facilitator development model that drives your autonomy as facilitators of change as quickly as feasible.

Most importantly, we offer a warranty clause that guarantees extraordinary return on your investment in EVERY engagement week from your perspective or you do not pay.

More specifically about warranty, we guarantee the client partner will receive extraordinary return on this investment EACH WEEK. And if, at the close of ANY partnering event, you disagree, the fees shall be waived and only our expenses associated with that event will be billed. This warranty clause and process is executed through a “Net Promoter” feedback survey sent to the desired executive contact or two via email following EVERY event engagement week unless the client requests otherwise. It is important that we get executive feedback regularly through this survey tool to ensure expectations are met or exceeded throughout the program. Albeit rare, if you respond with any feedback in the survey that would indicate dissatisfaction, the NLP program leader would immediately call to discuss your feedback and then move into a warranty claim discussion as applicable.

We have no contract employees, but do have two strategic partners who offering niche services that round-out our robust healthcare transformation team. Neither partner is employed nor owned by NEXT LEVEL Partners®, LLC.

Leader OnBoarding: Since 1996, the Leader OnBoarding team has specialized in working with Fortune 500 companies to build tight alignment and jump-start the impact of either newly-placed leaders or those leaders experiencing role transition. The LOB proven approach allows you to build an on-going leadership development process that aligns your leaders with organizational priorities and strategic direction.

Lean Optima: The Lean Optima team has developed a preferred, web-based solution to automating the lean management process called KAIZENOPTIMIZER™. This automated and cost-effective tool mistake-proofs and eliminates the waste in processes surrounding activity management across the organization in hoshin planning, kaizen preparation, kaizen execution, kaizen follow-up, best practice sharing and lessons learned, among others.

We’ve also successfully delivered our transformation model in conjunction with many existing healthcare performance improvement models in the industry including the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Triple Aim for Population Health, the Joint Commission Model for High Reliability in Healthcare, the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award criteria, the Shingo Prize criteria, the Carnegie Melon University Capability Maturity Model Integration, among others.

Our approach to improvement leverages a “balanced approach” to ensure improvement activity is highly impactful and generating financial return in the near-term WHILE sustaining into the distant future. Specifically, we ensure all process improvements are appropriately complimented by a “bullet-proof” plan WHILE keeping organizational talent development the “core” of everything we do.

PLAN → PEOPLE → PROCESS

We have generated differentiated impact and sustainability in the nearly all imaginable areas of the healthcare delivery system including patient safety, clinical quality, operational flow, employee engagement, administrative function, financial outcomes and patient satisfaction. Specific case studies are readily available upon request.